A lovely ride in this evening for nightshift.....mild, no rain, no wind....
There's nothing quite as nice as a Sunday morning commute home with no traffic. Then a shower and bed!

Today marked a couple of "firsts" for the year. It was the first time this year I rode without seeing any ice on the pavement anywhere. It was also the first time this year that it was light enough both in the morning and evening that I could wear sunglasses instead of my clear glasses.

31F with a 10 mph wind. My cycling gloves are getting pretty ratty, with a couple fingers on each hand poking through. As a result a few fingers got a little chilly. I wish they still made these gloves (Cannondale). I bought them in the fall of 2009 and have worn them a lot. I thought they were a little expensive at the time, but seeing how long they've lasted they were a good purchase. It's going to be tough to throw them in the trash.

River is expected to crest some time this morning and stay at that level for about a week. As I went by this morning I noticed it was up about two feet from yesterday morning. Unlike the initial flooding that happened a couple of weeks ago, the city and homeowners have had time to prepare this time around with lots of sandbagging going on. Hopefully that will help. Also, most of the houses that would be destroyed were already destroyed, so if they flood again it's not a new loss.

My house is on top of a giant hill, so I'm safe. The biggest trouble the flood has caused me was finding new bicycle routes around town to avoid my normal paths which are underwater. That's hardly trouble at all, when I compare with people who have lost their homes and everything they own. I'm not going to complain one bit, as I got off easy.

39F and pleasant this morning. I'm still nursing this sore knee, but it hasn't gotten any worse, so that's good. I left a little late this morning, but I was feeling extra motivated and ended up making it to work almost 10 minutes faster than my usual of late. The forecast is for 75F this afternoon, so it's gonna be a warm one, but 39 is too cold to hang up the tights just yet. Soon. I'm probably gonna take the fenders off for the season soon as well, since this is a desert and it probably won't rain at all from April/May-October.

After a lovely weekend, the weather mirrored my mood this morning. I told my wife she needed to take her umbrella because it was going to start pouring down rain when I got on the bike -- I was right.

Traffic was surprisingly light for the Monday after spring break for the schools, though, so that was nice. And the city almost got the lights sync'ed correctly; I hit the first one downtown as it was turning green and the rest turned or stayed green for me except for the last one. Either I was going too fast (17 in a 25 zone?) or the last light needed to turn about 10 seconds quicker. Which is more likely?

38F, overcast but a blinding white spot where the sun was so not complete gloom...

Someone tried to steal my bike on Friday!

It was raining that day, so I was riding my winter/rain/least loved bike. I was playing tennis with my GF from 7pm to 8pm, so I had it locked to wrought iron fence right next to the entrance to the facility (there is no camera there, but I park there hoping that others just assume there is one).

Yes, I realize that I was using a "rinky-dink" lock (through the back wheel, around the rear triangle), but I keep my bike in my office with me all day, and in my apartment at night, so I only use the lock for occasional and random stops here and there. And, well, although it's not much of a lock, it managed to do the job on this occasion. I can only speculate that the thief thought they could cut it super quick, and lost their nerve when they realized it was taking more effort than expected.

Anyway, here's what is left of the lock (I'm going to keep it to use as a second lock). I don't know if they tried to cut it in multiple places, or just made a mess while doing a single cut:

[MENTION=465722]robertorolfo[/MENTION], you got lucky. I have a cable cutter, the kind for brake and gear cables. It goes through those locking cables like scissors through paper. Don't use that cable any more.

Is it really that fast/easy? Serious question, because I would imagine it would still take considerable effort and at least a few seconds with anything less than bolt cutters. Next time I'm home, I'm going to try to get at this cable with my cable cutters and see how it goes.

But yes, either way, I'll be using a more substantial lock next time.

As for getting "lucky," that was my first thought as well, but then having your bike targeted for theft isn't that lucky in the first place, so I chalk it up to a matter of perspective.

Right. Unlucky to be targeted but lucky that it was unsuccessful. And yes, it's that easy with cable cutter. It might even be easier than with a bolt cutter. You have to make a few snips, but they use very little effort.

You also go lucky that they were apparently not very smart! Those locks are pretty easy to pop open with a screwdriver, so here's to stupid bike thieves!!

Spring is such a tease. Mornings have been in the 40's until today, 27F. But at least it's sunny

+1; supposed to tickle 50F today here, but it's having trouble getting out of the upper 20s.

Yup. Allegedly it was 43F this morning, but I froze my butt off the whole ride. Yesterday afternoon it almost hit 80, though - made for an absolutely beautiful ride home. It's supposed to hit 75 today, but then the rest of the week is going to languish in the upper 50s to low 60s.

There was an air quality alert here yesterday as well. That's unusual for the area and especially for the time of year. I'm hoping it doesn't happen again today. I'm already sniffling and snuffling today.

EDIT: Jesus, that lock. Ya'll are gonna make me go buy a real lock instead of my similar cheap cable lock......

44F sunny clammy

Also, late start this am so I had time to throw last night's commute clothes in the dryer on low to make up for them not drying out overnight from the rain coming home...

It rained pretty hard yesterday. 90% and up to a half an inch so I drove.

I rode this morning though and only the road was wet in spots around 42F felt good, even if my ears were cold. cooler but dry the rest of the week.

Yesterday evening, I rode to the bike coop where I volunteer most Monday evenings. It was cool and early-springy. While working, I took a bike out for a test ride, and the temperature had dropped, and it had started to sprinkle. But it didn't last long, and my ride home saw no rain of any kind. I got an email from ridewithgps that told me that I beat my record for the segment over the Williamsburg Bridge. I rank 203rd among all the riders there using this app. I guess that's good? I wasn't trying hard. In fact, I felt fairly weak the whole evening. Some women passed me on the trip out, and women don't normally pass me. They were extremely strong. Time will tell if my condition is because of the time of year or if my age is reducing my overall strength. I'm 58.

Today is four weeks since my surgery.

Week four has been a trial. I can feel that my sternotomy is still healing well, and that's a relief. I'm clearly "more recovered" than I was a week ago. But I've been battling both pain and a cold. The pain seems to be from nerves waking up or getting pinched, or just general strain on my chest from being pulled open. The pain came and went one day to the next which was frustrating because it was hard to come up with anything to do about it. The cold has taken my endurance down, and caused coughing which exacerbates the pain and keeps me awake at night. I was doing mile walks by the end of week three but haven't really done that at all since Wednesday of last week. Fortunately today I'm feeling like I'm through the woods and ready to get back on track.

It's been eventful lately. The other night I got passed by an SUV in the 1st Avenue tunnel, and my first thought was that he was going a lot faster than the usual traffic in the tunnel. The speed limit is 25mph, and there are frequently cops at the exit of the tunnel with radar guns. Sure enough, I see someone standing in the middle of the road at the tunnel exit, wearing some reflective gear. It was a cop and he pulled the guy over right in front of me. Gave the cop a thumbs up as I rode by. The driver was also weaving between lanes as he went by, and there is a solid white line between the two tunnel lanes (same direction of traffic), so he may have gotten double booked as well.

Well, in my own defense, it came with the bike and I don't use it very often (I don't leave my bikes locked up that often, since I normally take them inside, and usually it's one of my older steel frames that seem to attract less attention). And it's a Master!

Sounds good to me, but I guess it depends on the sample size. I don't know how many people are using ridewithgps, but I know that on Strava that would be a good ranking (for comparison, a section of the 59th street bridge has over 22K recorded efforts).

Not as many people use ridewithgps. I see 2,912 are recorded on that segment, and I rank 203. Not impressive, and neither is my time. Whatever. It's still fun to get those mails, but I wouldn't want to get them frequently unless I'm really doing something outstanding.

Hey, don't sell yourself short, that puts you in the top 10%...

Another milestone for the year: I wore shorts today.

46F which is the warmest morning we've had by like 10 degrees. It felt absolutely balmy, even with the 15 mph wind. There was a little rain during the night, but not enough to make the flooding worse. The river went down about 6" during the night. It's still well above flood stage but at least it looks like it's starting to head in the right direction.

Yesterday I received word that my open heart surgery is scheduled for April 24th. That means my consecutive commuting streak will come to an end somewhere around the 742 mark. There will be some weeks after my recovery where I will be cleared to come back to work, but won't be cleared to ride my bicycle. Unless I figure out a way to get super creative, I'll likely have to drive to work during that time.

I am formulating a plan on how to ride my bike to the hospital for the open heart surgery. I told my wife about that idea and she just rolled her eyes and went back to her book.

That's crazy, Tundra man, it was cooler here than way up in South Dakota!

Bright, sunny, clear with a few puffy clouds, and calm (thank goodness!).

I think our flowering cherry trees have peaked, though the redbuds are still going strong. Some of the magnolias are also blooming, I don't guess I'd noticed that not all the varieties people plant bloom at the same time. The first batch of hardwoods are pollenating: watery eyes, sneezing, and hacking follow, along with the yellowish puddle edges I noticed a couple days back. Not quite yellow-green car season, but the pines should be up next. Cough.

I agree with [MENTION=212158]pdlamb[/MENTION] - shorts and 46?! No way!! I love the idea of riding to the hospital for heart surgery - get the media to cover it.

28F in the morning, predicted 58F this afternoon, the new normal

Tues PM: 73 and windy. Not as nice as Monday, but not bad, either.

Wed AM: 51, overcast, windy. I made a serious effort to go easy so I don't burn out by end of week and was rewarded with a low 121 average HR. I don't know if it's the warmth or the wind or both, but I'm dyyyyying of allergies. I'm super stuffy and my eyes are bugging me and it's just ugh. I'm trying to power through and I take allergy meds every day anyways, but it's pretty unpleasant.